Agricultural harvesters use a variety of implements attached to their front ends to gather crops. One type of these implements is called a “draper” or a “draper header”. Draper headers use endless belt conveyors to carry cut crop material from a reciprocating knife to a center region of the header, and then to convey the cut crop material rearward into the agricultural harvester itself. Once in the agricultural harvester, the cut crop material is further processed by separating grain from unwanted crop material (typically called “material other than grain” or “MOG”).
In recent years, agricultural engineers have increased the length of draper headers. In order to do so, they have made several innovations. One of these is supporting the draper header on floating arms that permit the reciprocating knife to float up and down and better follow the contours of the land. In order to do this, they have further provided segmented crop ramps that extend rearward from the reciprocating knife over the leading edge of the endless belt conveyors. These crop ramps ensure that the cut crop material is lifted upward over the leading edges of the endless belt conveyors.
One problem that has arisen with this arrangement is crop becoming wedged between the segments of the crop ramps and the upper surface of the endless belts. In co-pending application U.S. Ser. No. 13/933,758 (filed 2 Jul. 13, entitled “Self-Cleaning Crop Ramp”), a partial solution to this problem was proposed. The Ser. No. 13/933,758 application is Incorporated herein by reference for all that it teaches. In this application it was proposed to provide the bottom surface of the crop ramp segments with recesses that will tend to capture cut crop material and propel it rearward and out from between the lower surface of the crop ramp segment and the upper surface of the endless belt.
While this has improved the performance of draper headers with segmented crop ramps, it has not eliminated the problem. What is needed, therefore, is an alternative draper header and endless belt that will further improve the expulsion of grain from between the crop ramp segments and the endless belts of the draper header. It is an object of this invention to provide such an improvement.